Thursday, June 5, 2014

Movie Review: Edge of Tomorrow

When
I watched Tom Cruise in a mech suit punching aliens in the face with one hand
and spraying machine gun ammo with the other, I had just one thought in my mind
– why was Edge of Tomorrow marketed
so poorly? Because Edge of Tomorrow
is a terrific film, and perhaps the most satisfying action movie I’ve seen this
year.

Directed
by Doug Liman who earlier made the first Bourne movie, Edge of Tomorrow is a mashup of Groundhog
Day, Starship Troopers and Source
Code with a dash of Minority Report.
Cruise’s previous movie Oblivion was
also a mashup of various sci fi films but it came across as clichéd and
unoriginal. Edge of Tomorrow, on the
other hand is packaged beautifully. It takes all the positive elements from the
aforementioned movies and becomes a different beast altogether.

Cruise
stars as a major with no combat experience thrust right in between a war
against aliens, and somehow wakes up a day earlier every single time he is
killed in action. We’ve seen this plot structure before but never executed this
way. Edge of Tomorrow feels like a
very enjoyable video game in hard mode. There’s no time to waste here – we’re
put right inside a war on the beach that feels like the opening minutes of Saving Private Ryan. And the scene plays
out in different perspectives throughout the film because the protagonist keeps
returning constantly and trying out various routes to survive. That way the
whole film is one single two hour long giant action set piece, and it’s
entertaining as hell.

The
film is based on the manga ‘All you need is Kill’ and thankfully the film is
less Hollywood and more Jap manga both in style and plotting. There are neither
love story clichés nor saccharine orchestra music to sentimentalize issues.
This is a hardcore action film that reminds you why we started going to
theaters to watch action movies. You walk into this film expecting some mayhem,
you’ll get a gigantic serving of it along with smart plotting and even clever humor.
The editing is insane and there’s no time to breathe, as Cruise’s character
keeps getting killed in various, at times hilarious ways and the film leaps forward
in time seamlessly. Not to mention the amazing production design that really
nails the large scale war scenes.

Liman
also does away with the origin of the aliens – it’s a straightforward story –
they’re here and they’re dangerous and they’re at war with us. The aliens
themselves are uniquely designed, and although you can’t fully appreciate the
CGI in 3D they’re still pretty intense. The mech suit is very cool and the
characters’ movements in them display some serious attention to detail.

Cruise
gets a lot of hate for his off screen antics but you gotta appreciate his
acting talent and his love for sci fi. Moreover this is an original sci fi
movie, not a sequel or a remake, and a damned good one at that. Plus there’s a
delightfully muscular Emily Blunt who wields a sword and keeps appearing in a
Yoga pose dozens of times in the film. I’d be more than happy to keep dying over
and over again to witness that sight.